The Time Travel Catastrophe
by percychased
Summary: Time travelling mishaps can have horrific results. After all, horrible things happen to witches and wizards who play with time. Set in 1788.


**The Time Travel Catastrophe**

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><p>1788 - Painswick, Gloucestershire, England<p>

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><p>Mother always insisted he'd amount to more than his no-good father, a man with no ambitions and a terrible, crude sense of humor she hated. Whenever Mother received a note from Headmistress Derwent, she would write back immediately and tell him what exactly Xavier thought he was doing acting like his <em>father.<em>

Unfortunately for her, entertaining was his only talent, quite honestly. He didn't have the concentration or care for schooling - Arithmancy, History of Magic, it was all useless. He didn't have a "plan" persay; he was more of a see-where-life-leads-me sort.

There was never much of a public interest, at the beginning of his career (after his expulsion from Hogwarts) for an entertainer at social gatherings - those were meant for men to discuss politics and the Ministry while the wives gossiped in the parlor about menial issues. They certainly weren't meant for _laughter_ or _fun._

However, there was one lady in particular who thought he was quite amusing, a woman a year or two younger than himself - Alchiba Smethwyke. It took years of courting her for her to finally agree to marriage, and while they were complete opposites - her being the youngest ever female Ministry employee - they had an extremely happy marriage.

It was odd for a woman to work in that day and age, and many - including his mother - believed he should have completed school, gotten a respectable Ministry job, and supported his wife and children. Xavier found many things wrong with that assumption. Alchiba had double the intelligence of some of the men in the Ministry, outsmarting them easily, and he had absolutely no desire to work in the Ministry.

He was used to arriving at their home in the evenings with his wife in their shared study, seated at the desk with long rolls of parchment on the desk and on the floor. She never told him the details of her job, just that she worked with time and experiments in time and no, it would not affect herself or him whatsoever. On one occasion, though, that was not the truth. Alchiba arrived home looked twenty years older than before, with lines across her forehead and next to her eyes and silverly grey highlighting her dark hair.

"Don't worry yourself," she said. "It is a controlled experiment. It will be fixed in the morning."

And it was. She arrived the next night looking like she had two days before, raven-black hair and smooth skin included. He didn't question it - Xavier was a simple man, just singing and dancing and making the people happy, and had no interest in the intricacies of time magic. His wife was the scholar of their household.

On January 14, 1788, he left his home for a small pub. There was a tap-dancing routine that had recently become popular with the townspeople a few villages over, and Xavier was eager to perform it again. He knew it would delight the crowd, as usual.

He began his routine amidst cheers from the rowdy men in the audience. The beginning was flawless, but five minutes in (not even halfway through!) he felt heavy fatigue set in. The room began to flicker - back and forth, he was in a cool grass field with nothing in sight, and then he was in the crowded pub. The audience could tell something was wrong with their entertainer as he continued, on instinct. _One, two, three, four._

_Five, six, seven, eight._ His shoes began to feel as though they were filled with lead, and his body swayed precariously back and forth, but he still continued moving; an entertainer always finished their set.

Dizzy, dizzy, dizzy. It was black, and then the cool grass field was black, but his feet didn't move. The audience was back again, only for a brief few moments before he felt himself falling, falling backwards again.

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><p>He was sure his tap shoes were tapping a rhythm on his head when he awoke. The room was too light - wasn't it nighttime out, and wasn't he in the pub?<p>

"Shut the drapes," he groaned, feeling like his mouth had been stuffed with fabric. Xavier hadn't noticed his wife was in the room when he awoke. She rushed to his bedside, on her knees beside his bed.

"Oh, my darling," she said. "I'm so terribly sorry this has happened."

"What happened?" asked Xavier; he wasn't sure if the grass and the pub and _so much darkness_ was real or only a product of his imagination._  
><em>

"Something I could have prevented," Alchiba said. "It was a Ministry experiment I was conducting, and I suppose because of the close proximity you have to me that... well, I guess it affected you too, because we are bound by a marital bond. I should have taken time off of work as soon as I suspected, but you know how fond I am of my job..."

He still didn't understand what she was trying to say, and with a deep, guilty sigh she continued.

"I believe I am with child," she said. "I never though... well, I supposed now I was much too old, but the evidence here is unmistakable," she continued. "Magic becomes uncontrollable when one is in this state, and that's why that happened. An experiment gone wrong, Xavier."

The only word he caught from what she said was child, and he sputtered loudly. Children! What confusing creatures they were. What would they possibly do with a child? He tried to sit up and felt his vision become spotted, and succumbed to the comfort of his bed while his wife quietly exited the room.

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><p>Alchiba had said she would request time off of work for the safety of herself and her unborn child, but as her stomach became more and more swollen, she simply charmed her robes to hide it and returned to the time experiment she was conducting. There were many months before the child would arrive, she said, and she would be careful.<p>

Xavier himself returned to entertaining, performing the very next day after he found out. Although distracted, he successfully entertained a crowd of one hundred and fifty witches and wizards in Hogsmeade.

Alchiba began to spend an increasing amount of time at the Ministry, and Xavier stressed it was not safe for the child. Although initially reluctant, he was beginning to accept the idea of a son or a daughter. His mother had recently discovered the news after an unexpected visit via Floo, and was overjoyed, as this was to be her first (and probably only) grandchild.

Xavier performed nearly every night - even after twenty years after starting, it was still thrilling to him, and he was beginning to get noticed on the streets occasionally. There was always something on the back of his mind, after every performance, though - what if the child came and he was not there, or she was in the middle of an experiment at the Ministry, or she was alone?

She seemed to age heavily in the months that passed by. Her high forehead started to develop wrinkles and her hair had a few previously unseen streaks of silvery grey, and she seemed to turn away from him a lot more. In the least, he was confused about her behavior, and made the decision one day to confront her about it.

"Oh, don't you worry about it," she said. "It's nothing harmful, calm your fears. Very low risk, I promise."

It was the first time Xavier had ever wondered specifically what she was doing at her work. As usual, he spoke his mind.

"The particulars are hard to explain, but perhaps I can give you a summary. We are going back in time for a varied amount of time - around two to four hours, usually - and coming back and seeing what has changed, before reversing it. It is dangerous work, Xavier, but you have to trust I know what I am doing."

Before he could open his mouth, she had turned and exited the room.

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><p>"Wonderful show, Rastrick."<p>

"Pleasing, very pleasing."

"Oh, do come again! Robert was just telling me how lovely your performances are!"

The night of July 16, 1788, could possibly be one of the best nights of Xavier Rastrick's thirty-eight years. Dressed to the nines in silken purple robes trimmed with green lace and a Muggle top hat, he had pulled off what was later called one of the most flamboyant performances of his career, and the wizarding world seemed to notice that.

He was in a joyous mood when he arrived home, whistling happily and hanging up his robes at the door.

"Alchiba?" He called, intending to celebrate.

Instead of his wife, however, he was accosted by Mother at the front door. Her wand was pointed at him, and she was in a terrible, boiling rage. "How _dare _you, leaving your poor wife alone in the house while you go to a frivolous, idiotic party! I have never been so appalled in my life, and I have seen many terrible things, let me tell you. I would be hexing you to this floor if it weren't for your wife, who is in your chamber with a midwife, delivering _your _child right now! You're quite lucky I decided to come for tea this evening!"

Xavier rushed past Mother; he had heard words similar (but not exact) to those many times before, and he was sure he would hear them again. He'd never really live up to her expectations.

Now was not the time to dwell on that.

As he raced up the stairs and arrived on the second landing, a loud, piercing scream echoed throughout the house, followed by the most terrible noise he'd ever heard - dead silence. He threw open the door, and saw nothing before the cry of a newborn baby filled the silence.

"I will ask you to leave, Mr. Rastrick, as I fix up your wife and your child," the midwife said, and he had only got a brief glimpse of his wife and blood - _too _much blood - before he was hastily ejected from the room. As he stood outside, in a daze from the last five minutes, Mother approached him from behind.

"You be good to this child," she said. It was perhaps the kindest words he had ever heard her say, and the kindest words she would ever say to him in his life.

It was many minutes before he was permitted to enter, and when he did, he knew he would never forget that one sight - his daughter and his wife -for the rest of his days.

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><p>The child - a daughter they had named Anna Alchiba - was only a month old when her mother began to deteriorate. It started slowly, with a monthly increase of silvery-grey in her hair, followed by an all-consuming exhaustion.<p>

They knew it was because of her job. Xavier found it difficult; he still had limitless energy, and performed whenever he could. His career as an entertainer was taking off - most nights, he was dancing and singing in pubs in the most outrageous robes possible, loving every minute of it. She did not return to work - at this point, Xavier was making enough to support his family and a little bit more.

By her thirty-seventh birthday in November, she looked nearly eighty. She was thin and fragile, wrought with fits of shaking and temperature fluctuations. Her voice, once clear and authoritative, was weak and shaky, and she could no longer hold her daughter properly.

"I've gone back too many times, Xavier," she coughed. "It is catching up to me. I won't last much longer."

"Don't say that," he replied.

Anna was five months old to the day when her mother died. Anna was also five months old when her father would never be the same.

Although Xavier would continue to enjoy performing, it did not bring him the limitless joy it had before. Anna became five, ten, fifteen and lived on without a mother, residing permanently with her grandmother and attending Hogwarts.

Time had also messed with him, as well, as a result of being in such close proximity with his wife for so many years, and when he disappeared in the middle of a tap-dancing act in front of three hundred people, his disappearance was the catalyst for many debates and discussions about conspiracy theories. Nobody had known where he had gone, and after three months missing, the Daily Prophet labeled it a death.

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><p>Xavier Rastrick was not alive when the Wizengamot passed a bill in 1899 after a horrific time-travel incident that forbade experiments in time, and neither was Anna Alchiba Rastrick, but Dorcas Wellbeloved, eldest daughter of Anna, had recently celebrated her eight-seventh birthday, and came to watch the court ruling.<p>

After the Eloise Mintumble accident, the bill passed with all Wizengamot members and the Minister of Magic at the time, Faris Spavin, all in favor, with a quote from Spavin being quoted in the Prophet for years to come.

"Terrible things happen to witches and wizards who play with time."

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><p>an - For the Quidditch League fanfic competition, for Puddlemere United, Chaser 1, using the prompts destiny, word count: 2222, and "I think I have discovered the secret of life: you hang around until you get used to it." Writing about the birth of someone in 1788 was definitely a challenge, but I like what I ended up with in the end. It was fun to create a story from someone who isn't even on the character list.

On Harry Potter Wikia, Xavier Rastrick is an actual character, although Alchiba Smethwyke and Anna Alchiba Rastrick are OCs. The circumstances regarding his death was on the wikia, and the Wizengamot banning of experimenting with time was not made up by me, either. Just trying to clear a few things up :) This is also exactly 2222 words. I'm extremely proud of myself! Let me know what you thought of this.


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